BLIZZARD THIEVES TOOK MY AUTISTIC SON’S COMPUTER
Storm fallout continues as raiders target special-needs school Man died as ambulance delayed after plough teams attacked Irish Water insists rationing of domestic supplies will spread
AN autistic boy had his ‘indispensable’ computer stolen by opportunistic thugs who raided a special-needs school during Storm Emma chaos.
Ten-year-old Ethan Murray’s mother Miriam has called for the return of the special Toshiba tablet, after it was snatched from St Ultan’s school in Navan, Co. Meath.
The PC contains a unique programme, specially designed for Ethan’s education, which he needs to communicate in school. His mother said she ‘couldn’t believe that anyone could be that low’.
Heartless thieves broke into St Ultan’s – which offers specialist education for children with moderate to severe learning
difficulties – during the blizzard early on Saturday morning, taking tablets and PCs belonging to the school and pupils.
‘We were watching on the news about the break-in at Lidl and the cars being burned out and then we got a call to say that thieves had broken into St Ultan’s,’ Ms Murray said, adding that it had taken months to get budget approval for Ethan’s computer programme from the Department of Education.
Ethan – who also suffers from severe epilepsy – is unable to write and needs the computer to learn. His education programme was designed for him by the Central Remedial Clinic using a specialist form of the Grid 3 children’s software programme.
The thieves also took four iPads, two laptops and a high-quality camera from the school.
They struck during the mayhem of the snowstorm, prising open a window in the junior section of the school at around 3am on Saturday, after climbing into the grounds through the neighbouring Maxol garage.
Gardaí were busy dealing with the effects of the blizzard at the time and many roads in Meath were impassable.
Ms Murray said Ethan cannot read and relies on the audio instructions on his PC to communicate. He uses it every day in school as part of the State’s drive to create individual learning for children with specialist needs.
He leaves the computer in school every day, only taking it home during holidays.
‘I can’t speak highly enough of the school,’ said Ms Murray. ‘Ethan was turned down at a national school and the very next day he was in St Ultan’s. He absolutely loves it there but he has nothing to learn with now,’
Acting school principal Karen Byrne said the computer was indispensable to Ethan, and described him as ‘a beautiful child’.
‘It has allowed him to learn in a structured way. It’s just such an opportunistic crime to commit on children,’ she said.
‘You have to wonder about the moral compass of society when something like this happens.’
Ms Byrne said that the thieves did not do major damage to the classrooms. ‘They seemed to know what they were looking for,’ she added.
Gardaí dusted for fingerprints but believe the burglars most likely wore snow gloves, judging by the smudge marks left on a window pane at the school.
Local Fianna Fáil councillor Tommy Reilly said it was ‘appalling badness’ to break into a special-needs school while gardaí were helping people get through the snowstorm.
‘St Ultan’s has done great work down through the years, as a service to all of Meath and the surrounding areas, so it’s really awful,’ he said.
Mr Reilly – an elderly shopkeeper who himself was caught up in an attack by a gang of youths on his Londis shop, which is near St Ultan’s, just last June – organised a group to clear ice and snow at the special-needs school yesterday morning.
Teachers are due to meet at the school today to assess the damage before it reopens tomorrow.
St Ultan’s is a co-educational special school for pupils with mild general learning disabilities. It was first opened in the town in 1966, and there are currently 110 pupils in the school aged between four and 18 years.
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